Australian cities need a long term plan for sustainability

No Australian city has envisioned how to support their residents with key resources. Neither have they addressed the unavoidable social tensions of increasing inequality between the well-off urban elite and those on the fringe.

Housing near military road in Western Australia. Image: Gnangarra/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5 AU

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Australia was already one of the most urbanised nations by the end of the 19th century. Unlike European and North American countries, Australia’s pattern of settlement did not have a neat urban hierarchy. The gap between the large and small towns was huge.

The fundamental issue is the reluctance of urban communities and their leaders to discuss what might be sustainable populations.

The folly of unlimited growth

No Australian city has a long-term vision showing how a future stabilised population might be supported with the essential resources of food, water and energy. No Australian city has faced up to the inevitable social tensions of increasing inequality between a well-served inner-urban elite and an increasingly under-resourced urban fringe.

In reality, the expanding ecological footprints of the large cities have created unsustainable demands on land to support urban dwellers. And the wastes the cities produce are straining the capacity of the environment to handle these.

Given the many unpriced flow-on effects from dense urban growth and market-led development, governments are struggling to deal with the undesirable consequences. Congestion and pollution threaten to overwhelm the many social and economic benefits of urban life.

The growth and concentration of populations are also driving chronic excess demand for appropriate housing. The result is serious affordability problems, which are adding to inequality across society and generations.

In 1970, urban historian Hugh Stretton pointed to the role of Australia’s widespread owner occupation in offsetting the inequalities generated in labour markets and by inherited wealth. This is no longer the case.

Failures of governance

The main factor driving urban population growth is an unprecedented rate of inward migration. The national government sets large migration targets as an easy way of creating economic growth. This leaves state governments with the impossible task of meeting the resulting demand for infrastructure.

Jane O’Sullivan has shown each extra urban citizen requires about A$250,000 of investment. The total sum is well beyond the capacity of state and local governments.

Arguments between federal and state governments are heavily politicised, especially when it comes to major transport investments. Even within single jurisdictions, complex demands and unexpected consequences prevent effective action. The waste recycling crisis is a prime example.

What needs to change?

To get beyond the rhetoric and make our cities more sustainably liveable requires a much more deliberate and interventionist role for government. It also requires residents of our cities and suburbs to be willing to allow their governments to interrupt business as usual.

This, we know from experience, is a big ask. It will step on the toes of the property lobby and ordinary home owners. In some cases, for example, the short-term financial interests of property owners are leading local authorities to ignore scientific warnings about the impacts of climate change on coastal development.

More complex policies like finding ways of diverting population growth to non-metropolitan regions will take careful thought and experimentation. This might include relocating government agencies to provincial cities. This has been tried sporadically in the past at the federal level and in states such as Victoria and New South Wales. However, such cases tend to be one-offs and do not reflect an overall strategic plan.

Future generations will inevitably be critical of the complete failure of current leaders to plan for sustainable development.

Mike Berry is emeritus professor at RMIT University and Ian Lowe is an emeritus professor in the School of Natural Sciences at Griffith University article was originally published on The Conversation.

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